Ari Fleischer: Obama Carrying Out Bush's 4th Term

On Monday, the White House shot down the growing perception that the Obama administration is no different than the Bush administration when it comes to its counter-terrorism tactics, reports the Hill.

Speaking to reporters, White House press secretary Jay Carney stressed that Obama has “lived up” to his promises to implement a new approach to United States’ war on terror.

Carney said the imprint Obama has made on the Iraq war, the Guantánamo Bay prison facility, the use of torture during interrogations and the warrant-less wiretapping program, all hallmarks of the Bush administration’s war on terror, prove the differences between the approaches of the two men.

Carney said the White House had struck the correct “balance between security and privacy” when asked the about National Security Agency’s surreptitious gathering of phone records of Verizon customers.

According to the Washington Times, that conclusion did not sit well with Alexander Abdo, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project.

“The ultimate check on governmental overreach is the American people,” Abdo said.

“The government appears to have secretly given itself shockingly broad surveillance powers, thereby depriving the public of the chance to weigh in on the wisdom of an unprecedented invasion of privacy.”